June Fifth
by HarryLurvsMarsBars
Summary: Calleigh's favorite day... Just a pointless one-shot


_**June 5, 1978**_

Summers in Darnell, Louisiana were long, muggy and, to six-year-old Calleigh Duquesne, a break from stupid school. First grade had been utterly boring to the vivacious, adorable blond. While she was doing handwriting practice and adding numbers in stuffy classroom with strange children, she was thinking of how she would much rather take a visit to the bayous with Daddy, or play hide-and-seek with her two younger brothers. No, even after nine whole months, school had not yet grown on Calleigh.

One can imagine, then, her excitement on this day, as the rattling old yellow school bus neared her drive for the final time for three months. The brakes squealed to a stop, and Calleigh grabbed her backpack hastily, running to the front of the bus without turning back. Hopping down the steps, she ran to hug her father's legs in greeting, and together they walked back to the plantation-style home.

The smell of brownies and the sound of cowboy battle cries alerted a few of young Calleigh's senses once they entered. She went into the kitchen and earned a kiss from her mother before she called Chris, the five-year-old and Michael the three-year-old, telling them Calleigh was home. Calleigh changed into play clothes before rounding up her brothers, each grabbing a hot, moist brownie from the counter and rushing outside.

The hot wind blew Calleigh's pale blond "dog ears", as her mother called them, around her face. The three Duquesne children ran to the tire swing hanging invitingly from a branch of the ancient oak tree. Taking up the regular formation with Calleigh in the middle and Chris and Michael on the sides, feet dangling out, they munched their brownies happily, creating the start of a perfect summer.

***

_**June 5, 1986**_

Thirteen-year-old Calleigh chatted happily yet distractedly with her best friend Lucille. The topic at hand was nothing of great significance, just typical tween gossip: _did you_ see _her hair; it was_ awful! _Have you heard of that new alien movie? Calleigh, that boy Kenney is staring at you…_

Yes, she knew Kenney was staring at her, but he was not what was distracting her now as he had all day. As the bus strolled further and further along the poorly paved road, each rotation of the wheels bringing her closer to her house, she was more and more tempted to ask Lucille if she could stay at her house for the start of summer. Her home had been filled with petty arguments between her parents since the start of the school year, and were probably going to get worse before they got better, if there even was the change there were going to get better at all. They were the kind of arguments that were not severe enough to worry Calleigh that much, but loud and heated enough so that they got under her skin. Still, going to Lucy's house would ruin her happier plans for the night.

So, when the bus stopped in front of their mailbox, Calleigh stood up, told Lucille goodbye for that night, smiled sweetly at Kenney, and motioned for her brothers to follow her.

From the mailbox to the front door was about a hundred yards, and the tree was situated right between the two. Calleigh had recently used this walk to the house to build up her emotional stamina to face her parents' argument of the evening.

Supper was a quiet affair, and when it was over the family members went their separate ways; Calleigh slipped out the front door to walk to the tire swing. Dusk was in its early stage when Kenney came up the drive. Calleigh smiled and patted the space next to her.

They talked for an hour or so until they realized the sky was a velvety black rather than the pinks and oranges before. They both fidgeted nervously with their fingers and hair, as kids often do at the end of their first date, waiting for the other to say or do something. Kenney wiped a bead of sweat from his neat brown hairline, ducked quickly into the pretty petite girl next to him, and planted a hesitant, chaste kiss to her surprised lips.

It was over before it had begun, and they smiled at each other before saying their goodbyes. Kenney set off to his home two houses down the road, turning back to flash her a shy grin.

Calleigh wasn't sure how she would have gotten through that summer without her two best friends. When your mother needs counseling and your father is an alcoholic, one needs those kinds of people.

***

_**June 5, 1990**_

Summers had become Calleigh's time for freedom, when she had an excuse to get out of the house that was now a verbal war zone, to go and stay out late without getting in trouble. One year. One. Damn. Year. That was how long she had to wait until she could legally get out of this hell-hole she called home and go to college. When you live in a town as small as Darnell, where everybody knows your business and you know theirs, there wasn't much secret to the population as to what was going on in the Duquesne household.

This is what Calleigh was thinking as she pulled into the drive in her mother's Lincoln. She wasn't going to be able to go anywhere off her own property this summer without being talked about in whispers behind hands. She hated it.

Cher, Calleigh's mother, was sitting in the den watching television, and her father was probably puffing a cigar in his office on the other wing of the house. She didn't know why they hadn't gotten a fucking divorce yet. If it was for them, the kids, they were horribly mistaken as to what would be best for them. Though the house was quiet now, she envied her brothers, who were at an off-season football practice. She envied them because this summer they were going to have a social life, and she didn't. Lucille had since moved away, Kenney was busy with his job at his dad's outdoor store, and she didn't want to listen to her other friend's petty teenage problems.

That night – or early that morning, whichever you prefer – Calleigh lay awake, unable to sleep, when her door creaked open. It was Chris, completely dressed and a backpack stuffed to brim slung on his shoulders.

Calleigh questioned him: _what was he doing_?

His answer: he was doing what they had all thought of doing at least once. Calleigh didn't need him to say the words, because he was absolutely right. Chris continued saying that he couldn't take it anymore. It was too much.

And despite how much she loved her brother, Calleigh couldn't stop him. The situation was bound to break them at one point, and it just happened to do Chris in first. So, with carefully unshed tears in her eyes, Calleigh hugged him and gave him a bill, which he reluctantly took. And then he was gone.

An hour later, Calleigh was still awake and needed to get of her room. She didn't bother with her robe and slipped on some flip-flops to walk out to the tire swing. She sat on the rubber criss-cross, suddenly regretting her decision to let Chris go quietly. There were so many things that could go wrong, things that could happen.

A drop of moisture fell down her cheek, but soon it was everywhere; raining. How cliché. At this point, Calleigh was bawling. Summers just weren't what they used to be.

The police found Chris two days later in a park a few counties away; apparently he had been on his way to a bust station to head north. Narrowly avoiding juvenile detention, Chris was escorted home by an officer and he stormed to his room without looking at anybody, brushing off his crying mother. That was the day Calleigh decided to become a police officer. If she could help one case like Chris', then she would be happy forever.

Now, one might think that missing a child would bring parents closer together. Not the Duquesnes, though. It was the step they needed to realize that they would never work out their differences.

***

_**June 5, 2010**_

To this day, Chris blames himself for his parents' divorce. To this day, Calleigh blames him for an entirely different thing: saving her life.

Had he not run away, she wouldn't have become a police officer (or a CSI) and she would not have moved to Miami if her parents had not done such a good job of ruining the general thought of Louisiana altogether. And if that had not happened, she wouldn't be standing here, on June fifth, in a flowing white gown with a dark, handsome man by the name of Eric Delko standing in front of her, ready to kiss her lights out as his new wife.

Calleigh picked June fifth as their wedding date because it was the day that she had some of her happiest memories, whether they were backhanded, like her parent's divorce, or not, like that day she and her siblings ate brownies on the tire swing. Today was a day to add to those memories forever.  
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**A/N: I can't help myself, I have to have some E/C! Other than that, what did you think?**


End file.
